Besides - how can you possibly review a game which never ends, and which it takes months to reach a high level in? Add to that the fact that MMORPGs are, frankly, a niche genre which traditionally appeal to a pretty small group of people, and perhaps our reasoning in not devoting acres of text to the whole area is more clear. While we've always stuck firmly by the principle that any review is just one person's opinion (albeit, hopefully, one well-informed person's educated opinion, expressed clearly and literately), when it comes to massively multiplayer titles, your enjoyment is just so subjective as to make a review utterly pointless. That's a major part of the reason why Eurogamer has never really given the massively multiplayer genre more than a passing glance. Massively multiplayer games don't just exist as monolithic entities - they evolve from day to day and from week to week, and your experience of playing one will be influenced as much by the people you play with as by the game itself. It's a rare genre where popularity actually is a fairly good indicator of quality but equally, it's a genre that is almost impossible to review. The quality of an MMORPG, then, can largely be judged on how good it is at achieving that goal - and how much fun it is in the process. After all, the objective of an MMORPG is to extract a subscription fee from your bulging wallet every month - and in order to keep you playing and make you feel like you're getting value for money, it needs to have the kind of content that keeps you coming back hour after hour, day after day. Although few game genres can boast such a large horde of vocal apologists, you'll find few people who disagree with that statement or sentiment.

Massively multiplayer online games are a timesink.

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